Monday, September 14, 2009

Rest in Peace Orry

Just came home from the boys’ football games – which they both won. Thank-you-very-much. Sad news came from numerous Facebook posts that Patrick Swayze died. (Isn’t that sad that I find out news from Facebook???) I really am quite sad. Almost as much as when I heard that John Hughes died.

My first encounter with Patrick came when I watched The Outsiders.

That movie was so great. It had all those hunky Brat Pack guys before they were Brat Packers. Patrick was the older, responsible brother to yummy Rob Lowe and C. Thomas Howell a.k.a. Pony Boy. Wait, he played that role again in Red Dawn.

Of course there was that great movie Dirty Dancing.

It came out my freshman year at Converse, and we all went to see it. “Nobody puts Baby in the corner.” Oh, how we loved Patrick Swayze and “Dirty Dancing”! Here was this total hottie who could act, sing, AND dance and was straight! And a true south’n accent to boot. Ahhhh…

But my favorite role of all was that of Orry Main in the mini-series “North and South”.

My sister, Anne Stuart, and I taped it (on VHS, remember those???) so that we could watch him again and again. We literally swooned as he galloped over to that awful Justin LaMotte’s (David Carradine) plantation to rescue his true love, Madeline (Lesley-Anne Down). And when he spoke, we hung on every honey-dripped word. Oh, if we could only find our own Orry Main.